Gormley: America will be OK. Get over it

Get over it. The United States — that big, robust and hopeful place — will survive Donald Trump. It might struggle. It might flourish. Who knows?

But what we do know are the rules of life that apply to every disruptive change. When the unexpected tumbles down on us, we tend to spend more time and anxiety fearing the unknown than we do the actual consequences of the change.

From generally benign changes, like a new boss or technology, to the calamities of sudden death, divorce or losing a job, ultimately when we accept the reality of change we begin to adapt and even evolve ourselves to accommodate the change.

In political terms, think no further than June’s recent Brexit vote to withdraw the United Kingdom from the European Union. While opinion polls showed a close race, pundits, political leaders and the chattering classes took every opportunity to point out the folly and absolute disaster that would befall Britain if it withdrew from the EU.

As the financial markets wobbled — as the same smug pro-EU pundits direly predicted a collapse — no market crash occurred and life has returned pretty much to normal, although the EU divorce has yet to be finalized.

Even the cataclysmic attacks on America 15 years ago that claimed 3,000 lives on 9-11 triggered an economic recession and bequeathed to us the scourge of radical Islamist terror. But people emerged from the shadows, rebuilt and moved on.

The aftermath of the closely fought election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump resembles the 2000 Bush-Gore race — the winner of the popular vote did not win the Electoral College and will not become president.

But the anger, recriminations and pouting at the result are without modern precedent. Those of us who have won (and then lost) elections know that the voters are always right.

The correctness of the voters’ verdict may be questioned, but it is always final. And while unhappy losers don’t have to agree with the decision they must accept it.

The freaking out, losing of minds and protesting of results — not to mention painful expressions of psychological trauma and solidarity by unhappy Democrats and many of their friends in the media — are fair game in a society that cherishes free speech and expression. But they are nothing more than the tantrums of sore losers.

To be sure, Donald Trump ran the most unorthodox primary and presidential campaigns in modern history. Name calling, appealing to fear and enthusiastically embracing issues that divide people are not usually winning formulas.

But Trump found a sweet spot of alienation, anger and disenfranchisement that was not only invisible to smug mainstream pundits but beyond their capacity to understand. Even when they tried to figure it out, they couldn’t overcome the irresistible temptation to paint Trump supporters as pathologically backwards rednecks and lesser moral beings — all 60 million of them!

Despite his strongly held views on illegal immigration — widely held, incidentally — and his campaigning on fear of radical jihadism, Trump no more invented racism and intolerance than Hillary Clinton created crony politics and entitlement.

The American republic — as much as it cherishes its origins in the pursuit of liberty, its constitution, an independent judiciary and the rule of law — is at its best when it shows its immense optimism and hope.

For every small town poor boy who grew up to be Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton, or the improbable trajectory of an African-American kid from Hawaii who came to college in Los Angeles and became President Barack Obama, America is a resilient place that holds out great opportunity.

And it’s better when it pulls together under a common sense of purpose.

While Donald Trump is a billionaire who plays the outsider, a loud and unusual anti-politics politician, America is bigger than one man. And it will be Trump’s challenge and opportunity to forge a better nation.

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